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Science and Technology in Human Societies: from Tool Making to Technology

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Science and Technology in Human Societies: from Tool Making to Technology Chapter 44 Science and Technology in Human Societies: From Tool Making to Technology C.J. Cela-Conde1 and F.J. Ayala2 1University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca, Spain; 2University of California, Irvine, CA, United States TOOL MAKING nor will we go into the later cultural developments that follow the evolution of the modern mind. The adaptive strategies of all taxa belonging to the genus We should already express a methodological caveat Homo included the use of stone tools, although the char- before proceeding: the scheme Cultural Mode ¼ species, is acteristics of the lithic carvings changed over time. The too general and incorrect. The assumption that a certain earliest and most primitive culture, Oldowan or Mode 1, kind of hominin is the author of a specific set of tools is appears in East African sediments around 2.4 Ma in the grounded on two complementary arguments: (1) the hom- Early Paleolithic. Around 1.6 Ma appears a more advanced inin specimens and lithic instruments were found at the tradition, the Acheulean or Mode 2. The Mousterian culture same level of the same site; and (2) morphological in- or Mode 3 is the tool tradition that evolved from Acheulean terpretations attribute to those particular hominins the d culture during the Middle Paleolithic. Finally for the ability to manufacture the stone tools. The first kind of d limited purposes of this chapter the Aurignacian culture, evidence is, obviously, circumstantial. Sites yield not only or Mode 4, appeared in the Upper Paleolithic. The original hominin remains, but those of a diverse fauna. The belief proposal of cultural modes by Grahame Clark (1969) that our ancestors rather than other primates are responsible included a Mode 5 by differentiating some technical details, for the stone tools comes from the second type of argument, allocating to Mode 4 the punch-struck blades from pris- the capacity to manufacture. This consideration is perfectly matic cores of the Upper Paleolithic, while the Mode 5 was characterized by the episode involving the discovery and reserved for the microliths and compound tools of the late proposal of the species H. habilis.AsLouis et al. (1964) Upper Paleolithic. We believe that this distinction is not said, “When the skull of Australopithecus (Zinjanthropus) necessary for the present chapter, whose aim is to relate boisei was found [in Olduvai, Bed 1] no remains of any fi cultural development to human evolution. A rst approach other type of hominid were known from the early part of attributes each cultural stage to a particular human taxon. the Olduvai sequence. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to Thus, the beginning of tool making, ie, Mode 1, is linked to assume that this skull represented the makers of the Old- “ ”d Homo habilis, and technology understood as the mak- owan culture. The subsequent discovery of H. habilis in ing of tools which require a modern mind necessary for association with the Oldowan culture at three other sites has d Mode 4 to Homo sapiens. Although we will also examine considerably altered the position. While it is possible that the technical advances assigned to Mode 5 by Clark (1969), Zinjanthropus and H. habilis both made stone tools, it is these are part of an evolution that does not involve a change probable that the latter was the more advanced tool maker “ ” of species. In fact, the technology may be adding new and that the Zinjanthropus skull represents an intruder (or a modes due to the multiple technological advances that the victim) on an H. habilis living site.” (Leakey et al., 1964). cultural evolution of H. sapiens has achieved, starting with Here we have a clear example of the argumentative ’ agriculture. It doesn t make sense to suggest such a model, sequence: First, a Paranthropus boisei cranium and 729 On Human Nature. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-420190-3.00044-2 Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 730 PART | III Ethics, Politics and Religious Considerations associated lithic instruments were discovered at the FLK I evidence of such behaviors collected by Jane Goodall and site, Olduvai. Later, hominins with a notably greater cranial Jordi Sabater Pi (Goodall, 1964; Sabater Pi, 1984), many capacity, included in the new species H. habilis, were cases of chimpanzee tool use that can be considered cul- discovered at the same place. Eventually, stone tools were tural have been brought to light. Very diverse cultural tra- attributed to H. habilis, morphologically more advanced in ditions have been documented, including up to 39 different its planning capacities. Leakey et al. (1964) paper included behavioral patterns related with tool use by chimpanzees a cautionary note. Even though it is less probable, it is (Boesch and Tomasello, 1998; Vogel, 1999; Whiten et al., conceivable that Zinjanthropus also made lithic tools. 1999). Some of these patterns include the use of different However, the attribution of capacities that identify tools in sequence, as it is done by the Loango chimpanzees H. habilis as the author of Olduvai lithic carvings has some (Gabon) for obtaining honey (Boesc et al., 2009). It is, of reservations. John Napier (1962) published an article on the course, true that the use of tools includes different patterns evolution of the hand two years before, relating stone tools in the case of humans, who carry out operational planning to the discovery of 15 hominin hand bones by Louis and tasks and, in particular, technical improvement processes Mary Leakey at the site where Zinjanthropus had been (Davidson and McGrew, 2005). However, it is also true found. According to Napier, “Prior to the discovery of that chimpanzees are able to consider future uses of tools, Zinjanthropus, the South African man-apes (Australopith- which involves some planning (Mulcahy and Call, 2006). It ecines) had been associated at least indirectly with fabri- has even been observed experimentally in these apes a cated tools. Observers were reluctant to credit man-apes conformity to cultural norms used by dominant individuals with being toolmakers, however, on the ground that they in the group, an attitude similar to human behaviors lacked an adequate cranial capacity. Now that hands as (Whiten et al., 2005). well as skulls have been found at the same site with un- One of the most interesting aspects of chimpanzee doubted tools, one can begin to correlate the evolution of behavior, to understand the evolution of the lithic tradi- the hand with the stage of culture and the size of the brain” tions, is the production, at the beginning unintentional, of (Napier, 1962). flakes which resemble those produced by the first human Napier’s (1962), and Leakey et al. (1964) in- cultures. This “spontaneous” production appears when terpretations of the Olduvai findings exemplifies the risks chimpanzees accidentally shatter a stone while trying to involved in the correlation of specimens and tools. Both the crack nuts; the result can lead to sets of cores and flakes skull of Zinjanthropus (OH 5) as well as the OH 8 that are reminiscent of those in the oldest hominin sites collection of hand and feet bones (with a clavicle), all of containing tools (Mercader et al., 2002, 2007). It is them found by the Leakey team in the same stratigraphic reasonable to think that the hominins themselves would horizon, could be related to lithic making. Sites yielding use, at least as much as chimpanzees, the spontaneous tools and fossil samples of australopiths and H. habilis tools available (Panger et al., 2002). And they would do it require deciding which of those taxa made the tools. The for a considerable time before starting to produce tools widespread attribution of Mode 1 to H. habilis is based on a explicitly. This idea was expressed by John Robinson set of indicators among which are hand morphology and (1962) when he said that the australopiths did not produce size, as well as brain lateralizationdan expression of the the complex carved stone found in Sterkfontein; but, for control capabilities of either handd(Ambrose, 2001; Pan- this author, this does not mean they lacked culture. When ger et al., 2002). seeking food they could have used rocks, sticks, bones, and any other tools that would be useful for their purposes. PRECULTURAL USES OF TOOLS Eudald Carbonell et al. (2007) have referred to these us- ages prior to tool production as the “biofunctional stage” Regarding the use of stones or other materials for obtaining or “Mode 0.” Shannon McPherron et al. (2010) have food, one must distinguish between two different opera- identified at the site of Dikika (Ethiopia) stone toole tions. One matter is to make use of pebbles, sticks, bones, inflicted marks on bones whose age is more than 3.39 Ma. or any available object to, for example, break nutshells and Even though McPherron et al. (2010) foundnotoolsin access the fruit; another is to manufacture very deliberately Dikika, Sonia Harmand presented at the meeting of the tools with a specific shape to carry out a precise function. Paleoanthropology Society in San Francisco on April 14, Although we are speaking in speculative terms, it is 2015, the finding at the site of Lomekwi (Lake Turkana, conceivable that the spontaneous use of objects as tools Kenya) of tools coming from sediments with an age of preceded stone carving. around 3.3 Ma (Callaway, 2015). There are, moreover, By means of the comparative study of the behavior of very heavy artifacts, some of them up to 33 lbs. Although African apes, ethology has provided some interesting in- at the time of writing this chapter the research on these terpretations about how chimpanzees use, and sometimes tools has not been published, clues about the ancient use of modify, stones and sticks to get food.
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